A Tale of Many Easters

For our Easter traditions this year we started with egg dying, and an awesome Jerusalem dinner.

We had many great Easter celebrations this year. We had the chance to go to 5 egg hunts, but we skipped to flash light one due to bad weather. Olive loved eggs hunts and shaking the eggs. It wasn't until her 3rd hunt that she figured out there was candy in them. Be prepared for picture overload.

The dress I made her turned out to be a little short but still I think it turned out cute!

First a hunt at the grandparents house with all the cousins proved very exciting.

Some surprise eggs had money in them. She was kinda confused.


Next up the neighborhood hunt had tons of kids and was also freezing cold. Olive was picking up eggs from frosted lawns. But she was still excited as you can see.

Olive was very worried this dog was going to steal her egg.

It was very chilly and all I had were my gloves so we put them on her freezing fingers. But they made her frustrated because she could not pick up eggs after that.

There was a pot luck breakfast after the hunt (have I ever mentioned how much I love living here?) so we tried to warm Olive up to eat.

But she was just ready to go.

For our own hunt we waited until late in the afternoon so that the weather would be more tolerant.

I think this next picture is so funny. Scott thinks she looks like an old lady. Maybe its the hat.

Turns out I put out way too many eggs. Olive didn't even pick up half of them. We had to go around later and gather them all up for her.

Here she is surverying all the loot.

I think her favorite gift was her new bike. She has been randomly sitting on other children's bikes around the neighborhood so we took the hint that she would like a ride of her own. She looks pretty happy!

Enjoying the delicious jelly beans after all her hard work.

Change of plans

I was planning on posting this tree that is outside my kitchen window. I was excited to show off the new blossoms and how I get to watch them grow every day. I kept telling myself that spring really was here and this tree was the proof.

Then I woke up this morning to find these blossoms and everything else covered in snow.

This is why I hate spring. It is so deceptive. One day it is beautiful and you think that winter is really, actually, completely gone. Then the next day it snows. At least tomorrow is April and hopefully there are only rain showers not snow showers. And also you can sing Little April Showers.

Oh, and sorry these pictures look rather crazy. I was planning to go outside to photograph this tree but I decided that the snow made that impossible. So this is what photos look like if you try and take them through a leaded glass window. Everything becomes very wavy.

What Olive's been up to lately

She's been playing basketball with her uncle.

Coloring with Grandma.

Playing in the yard and climbing through all the flower beds.

Going on walks. Renegade (our silly cat) follows us on walks. He loves exploring with us and going up to people's porches. If we get to far away he will come scampering after us. Olive loves that he comes with us but it makes her very distracted and hard to really get anywhere.

Taking breaks on our walks. Olive loves to sit on the stairs of the Catholic church house down our street. (So does our cat)

How cute are they? What a great life we have!

(P.S. Sorry none of these pictures are very good quality but they were all taken on my phone to capture the moment.)

A Big Surprise

So, we gave my parents some carpet (long story but it has to do with our flood). They got inspired to do some redecorating and asked us if we could help. They said they wanted our "expertise" but I am guessing they really wanted the free labor. New carpet turned into new flooring which turned into new paint which turned into new everything.
Truthfully we were happy to help because after 10 years and 3 teenage boys the house was in need of some attention. I got very excited about the updating and talked my brothers into chipping in to have the front room completely redecorated as a surprised to my parents. They were going out of town for the weekend so we rushed to get everything done and ready before they got back. We totally felt like we were on an HGTV show waiting to reveal our redecorated room.
Unfortunately I forgot to take before pictures. But here is the finished product.

Scott and my brother did the new floor. They worked so hard and it looks sosososo great. I decided to do matching slipcovers to make the furniture match.

This stairway was the most difficult thing to paint. The walls are 16 ft and the ceiling was a pain. Thankfully Scott did most of that painting.

Scott added some great fluted wood trim around the windows to give them some great detail. (Mary-I totally copied your curtains. They really inspired me for this room!)

We have plans to do a big square wood frame on this empty wall but we ran out of time. I think that is going to be the real finishing touch and add a lot of class too.

I repainted these bookshelves white and bought some new, inexpensive accessories to fill them.

We also painted the accent color around the fireplace added trim and painted the mantel black in their family room. Here you can kinda see the new carpet that is also on the stairs. Overall I think it all looks great!

My parents were very surprise and gratetful. They had no idea. We were so happy to put this all together and have the room finished so they didn't have anything else to worry about. That is the last remodeling I plan to do in awhile in case you guys are extremely bored of looking at room after room.

It's been awhile

I have been missing my blog! We have been so busy helping my parents redecorate their house (which I will post) that I have had no time to think. I have been seeing some blogs where they have decided to post 6 times a week and have a schedule! My blog is less..um...cool I guess.


So in the spirit of returning I thought I would show you our family room. Below is the before picture. Don't you just love the plaid wallpaper? You can't see it very well but it also had long red shag carpet. They were counting this as a bedroom, but we saw lots of potential.

When we started the search to find a house we had some very specific criteria. High on that list was a family room. I know this room is a luxury, but it feels like a necessity. At our last place we had a loft, which was great in a lot of ways. One of the biggest problems with the loft (other than children falling off the edge) was that it was all open space. We couldn't close a door or shut out any noise. So it felt very important that we had 2 living spaces. Now as our family grows and the kids get older we have a place to send them.

Here is our version of this room (lived in and all):

Our family room actually serves many purposes. It is the playroom, the exercise room, and the media room. We still have some things to finish up but this room has been a life saver this winter.

What I really love about it is that it can look like this and I am happy about it. I love that Olive has a place to play and pull out all her toys. I love that we can invite friends over and actually have a place to be. And like I said earlier, I love that I can watch tv upstairs, or go to bed, and Scott still can play video games if he wants.

Some other great features of our family room is the built in storage it came with. Above are cabinets for books and our huge dvd collection. And the below picture is storage under our stairs that holds toys as well as lots of holiday decorations. The cabinet in the picture is going to be turned into toy storage also, someday.

The good thing about our loft was that it had huge walls. I did one of the walls as a photo wall and I absolutely loved it. Here we don't quite have the same wall space but I already had a bunch of frames so I decided to do a modified photo wall. It is kinda progressed to the the "Wall-ive" or the Wall of Olive. We better have another kid so she doesn't get too spoiled.

There you have it, a very lived in family room. What do you think?

Olive Loves Kitty

...but Kitty doesn't necessarily love her back. Olive has started considering Kitty her friend and likes to get down and show him toys or interesting things.

She chases him around the house when he is uninterested and trying to avoid her. She never lets him sleeps and pets him by smacking his face. She also loves his tail which he really hates.

It might just be the adorable only the mom sees, but I think that when she gets down to give him kisses on the nose, it is the most adorable thing ever.

She just loves him so much! I also love when we walk in the door and he waiting for us, Olive always yells "Icky (Kitty)! Moow (meow)". Yep, too cute!


P.S. Yes I know he is a gigantic panther cat.

Family Resemblance

Last week Olive turned 18 months old. Isn't she so adorable?

Actually that is a picture of me at 18 months. Fooled you huh?

You see, as Olive is getting older I keep hearing from people how she looks more and more like Scott. I'm not saying people are wrong, but it kinda boggles my mind because when I look at her I always think of my baby pictures. When Olive was a baby I thought that she looked similar to me but, still had her own "look". Now that she is getting older, all I can think is that she is looking (and acting) more and more like me. I have not seen many pictures of Scott at this age so it is hard to really say, but I think it is hard to argue with these pictures.


If you know Olive, you know that she makes the exact same face.

So, for Olive's 18 month old pictures I thought it might be kinda fun to recreate some of my baby pictures and really compare the similarities. Judge for yourself.






Here are some other shots that I really liked.

I think this might be my favorite picture. I love how the hint of green in the background picks up her eyes.


Maybe she isn't loosing as much of her chubbers as I thought. Doesn't she look like a little pudge?